Page 72 of Jinxed
‘Mr Baird? This is Lacey. Jinx and I need your help.’
‘WE’RE PART OF CARTER’S BAKU Battle team,’ Tobias says to the security guard at the front desk, Aero spreading his wings – simultaneously looking impressive and partially obscuring us from view.We know that Carter trains here with Gemma’s team, so we’re hoping that the guard hasn’t paid too much attention to which particular students have been coming and going.
‘He’s signed in, you’re right, but he didn’t mention anything about a team...’
‘We have a standing order to practise whenever possible. Eric Smith said we could,’ says Tobias, putting on his most authoritative-sounding voice.Aero squawks loudly. This is stage one of the plan. All we need to do is get in, find Carter, get Jinx back, and then Mr Baird will be waiting outside to take Jinx and me to safety. What I’ll do from then... I’ll figure out later.
The security guard frowns. I’m hoping that the fear of pissing off Eric Smith is greater than the desire to check if we’re really supposed to be there.
Then Tobiaspulls out his trump card. It’s a pass he stole from his dad’s home office, emblazoned with the same logo we saw on the video: the logo for Team Happiness. The guard’s eyes widen at the sight. ‘All right, go on through – but try not to create too much of a mess this time around, okay guys?’ His sleek black panther baku sniffs us each as we pass, but with my level 1 baku especially, I don’t attractany special notice.
We walk casually towards the elevators. Tobias leans down to talk in my ear.
‘Okay, the four of us will take on Carter – we shouldn’t have any trouble. You focus on getting Jinx.’
I nod. ‘I will.’
Tobias and I head down in the elevator, while the others take the stairs, following Tobias’s directions. Thankfully there aren’t many staff around so late at night, so there’sless chance of us running into much questioning.
There’s no denying that we might have a better chance against Carter if we use the element of surprise, but we’ve decided that our first course of action is for Tobias to try and reason with him.
Tension radiates from him. I want to make things better between us, and I hesitate. But this might be the last time that I will get to see him for awhile.
As the elevator doors slide closed, I reach out and touch Tobias’s arm, just above his elbow. He looks down at it, but doesn’t shift his position. I swallow. ‘Thank you for doing this.’
He sighs and turns to face me. ‘I want...’ but he doesn’t finish the statement. The bell dings for our floor and for once I wish that technology wouldn’t work so friggin’ well – that it would breakdown, leaving us stranded together, trapped in the elevator until we sort things out. Aero flaps out first, and Tobias follows, moving so quickly my hand is forced to drop.
Jinx.I remind myself. Jinx first, and then I can focus on rebuilding my relationships.
‘This way,’ Tobias says, looking at the map that Aero projects in front of him. ‘Through here.’ He leads me through a sliding glass dooremblazoned with the constellation on it, into a long hallway – the one I saw in the video, with the waterfall window. This wing, however, feels different to the other parts of Moncha HQ that I’ve seen. For one thing, the walls seem to shimmer as we walk quickly past, making my eyes go funny.
‘All the walls here are screens,’ says Tobias. ‘Eric wants Team Happiness to be able to code wheneverinspiration strikes.’
‘Wow,’ I say. If I wasn’t so focused on finding Jinx, I’d be way more impressed. ‘How are we going to find Carter in this labyrinth though?’
Tobias gives me a small smile. ‘That, I think, will be the easy part. Aero, call Hunter.’
Aero obeys the command, and a second later we hear the snuffling sound of the boar from further down the hall. We race to catch up with thesound, then pause outside the door.
‘Ready?’ Tobias mouths to me. I nod.
We open the door.
Carter is standing at the far end of a huge open-plan space, similar to the brainstorming lab we’d been shown earlier.
‘No one is supposed to be in here!’ says Carter, sounding panicked. ‘Do I have to spell out every single instruction...’
He stops talking when he looks up and sees us.
‘Give backJinx, you animal!’ I blurt out,sonot the softly, softly approach that Tobias and I had discussed. Tobias throws his arm out in front of me to stop me from doing something stupid – like launching myself towards him.
‘What Lacey means to say is, she knows you have her baku and we would like to ask for it back – nicely,’ says Tobias. Aero is down by his side, and I see him furiously typing a messageon his back, to communicate our position to the others.
Carter looks as if he is going to lie to us, but then he moves his body to reveal the cage that holds Jinx’s inert body. ‘There’s no way you’re getting this machine back. It wasn’t yours to begin with. You don’t even know what that thing is. But my dad knows. He’s been looking for this baku everywhere. And I’m the one who’s going to returnit to him.’
‘Carter – listen. There’s two of us and one of you. Let’s make this easy – just give us the baku back,’ Tobias says.
Carter laughs. ‘Hunter can easily take on Aero and Lacey doesn’t even have a baku.’ As if to prove his point, the upgraded Hunter steps forward. His bodywork has changed – there’s no attempt to make him look like a ‘realistic’ boar – he’s a brute of titanium and chrome,with two layers of super-charged, razor-sharp curved tusks that look especially vicious. ‘But did you really think I would come down here with no back-up whatsoever?’
